This guide describes the recommended way to install Graylog on Debian Linux 10 (Buster) and 11 (Bullseye). All links and packages are present at the time of writing.

Warning: This guide does not cover security settings! The server administrator must make sure the Graylog server is not publicly exposed and is following security best practices.

Prerequisites

Hint: This guide assumes that any firewall is disabled and traffic can flow across all necessary ports.

Graylog 5.0 requires the following to maintain compatibility with its software dependencies: 

  • OpenJDK 17 (This is embedded in Graylog 5.0 and does not need to be separately installed.)
  • OpenSearch 1.x, 2.x or Elasticsearch 7.10.2
  • MongoDB 5.x or 6.x (This requires a CPU with AVX instructions. Confirm that your CPU supports AVX and in virtual environments that the AVX instruction set is presented to the hypervisor.)

Warning: We caution you not to install or upgrade Elasticsearch to 7.11+ or OpenSearch 2.14+! It is not supported. If you do so, it will break your instance!

MongoDB

Graylog 5.0 is compatible with MongoDB 5.x-6.x.

(To install MongoDB on Debian, the official MongoDB documentation provides a helpful tutorial.)

The official MongoDB repository provides the most up-to-date version and is the recommended way of installing MongoDB:

1. Install the cryptographic libraries required for the repository keys.

Copy 
sudo apt-get install gnupg

2. Import the key.

Copy 
wget -qO - https://www.mongodb.org/static/pgp/server-6.0.asc | sudo apt-key add -

3. Add the Debian repo to the APT list.

For Debian 10:

Copy 
echo "deb http://repo.mongodb.org/apt/debian buster/mongodb-org/6.0 main" | sudo tee /etc/apt/sources.list.d/mongodb-org-6.0.list

For Debian 11:

Copy 
echo "deb http://repo.mongodb.org/apt/debian bullseye/mongodb-org/6.0 main" | sudo tee /etc/apt/sources.list.d/mongodb-org-6.0.list

4. Update repository package.

Copy 
sudo apt-get update

5. Install the latest stable version of MongoDB.

Copy 
sudo apt-get install -y mongodb-org

6. The final step is to enable MongoDB during the operating system’s start up.

Copy 
sudo systemctl daemon-reload
sudo systemctl enable mongod.service
sudo systemctl restart mongod.service
sudo systemctl --type=service --state=active | grep mongod

Hint: For the following sections on OpenSearch and Elasticsearch, select which data node you will be using for your Graylog instance and complete only the requisite section.

OpenSearch

If you are using OpenSearch as your data node, then follow the steps below to install OpenSearch.

The recommended method of installation is to follow the user documentation provided by the OpenSearch service.

1. Install the necessary packages.

Copy 
sudo apt-get update && sudo apt-get -y install lsb-release ca-certificates curl gnupg2

2. Import the public GPG key. This key is used to verify that the APT repository is signed.

Copy 
curl -o- https://artifacts.opensearch.org/publickeys/opensearch.pgp | sudo gpg --dearmor --batch --yes -o /usr/share/keyrings/opensearch-keyring

3. Create an APT repository for OpenSearch.

Copy 
echo "deb [signed-by=/usr/share/keyrings/opensearch-keyring] https://artifacts.opensearch.org/releases/bundle/opensearch/2.x/apt stable main" | sudo tee /etc/apt/sources.list.d/opensearch-2.x.list

4. Verify that the repository was created successfully.

Copy 
sudo apt-get update

5. With the repository information added, list all available versions of OpenSearch:

Copy 
sudo apt list -a opensearch

6. Choose the version of OpenSearch you want to install. Unless otherwise indicated, the latest available version of OpenSearch is installed.

Hint: OpenSearch v2.12 and greater now requires setting the OPENSEARCH_INITIAL_ADMIN_PASSWORD environment variable when installing. The password must be a minimum of eight characters, at least one uppercase letter, one lowercase letter, one number and one special character.

Copy 
sudo OPENSEARCH_INITIAL_ADMIN_PASSWORD=$(tr -dc A-Z-a-z-0-9_@#%^-_=+ < /dev/urandom  | head -c${1:-32}) apt-get -y install opensearch

To install a specific version of OpenSearch, specify the version manually using opensearch=<version>.

Copy 
sudo OPENSEARCH_INITIAL_ADMIN_PASSWORD=$(tr -dc A-Z-a-z-0-9_@#%^-_=+ < /dev/urandom  | head -c${1:-32}) apt-get -y install opensearch=2.12.0

Graylog Configuration for OpenSearch

1. Begin by opening the yml file.

Copy 
sudo nano /etc/opensearch/opensearch.yml

2. Update the following fields for a minimum unsecured running state (single node).

Copy 
cluster.name: graylog
node.name: ${HOSTNAME}
path.data: /var/lib/opensearch
path.logs: /var/log/opensearch
discovery.type: single-node
network.host: 0.0.0.0
action.auto_create_index: false
plugins.security.disabled: true
indices.query.bool.max_clause_count: 32768

3. Enable JVM options.

Copy 
sudo nano /etc/opensearch/jvm.options

4. Now, update the Xms and Xmx settings with half of the installed system memory, like shown in the example below.

Copy 
## JVM configuration
################################################################
## IMPORTANT: JVM heap size
################################################################
##
## You should always set the min and max JVM heap
## size to the same value. For example, to set
## the heap to 4 GB, set:
##
## -Xms4g
## -Xmx4g
##
## See https://opensearch.org/docs/opensearch/install/important-settings/
## for more information
##
################################################################
# Xms represents the initial size of total heap space
# Xmx represents the maximum size of total heap space
-Xms1g
-Xmx1g

5. Configure the kernel parameters at runtime.

Copy 
sudo sysctl -w vm.max_map_count=262144
sudo echo 'vm.max_map_count=262144' >> /etc/sysctl.conf

6. Finally, enable the system service.

Copy 
sudo systemctl daemon-reload
sudo systemctl enable opensearch.service
sudo systemctl start opensearch.service

Elasticsearch

Elasticsearch 7.10.2 is the only version that is compatible with Graylog 5.0; however, we recommend OpenSearch for new Graylog cluster installations.

The following commands will begin the installation of the open-source version of Elasticsearch. See the Elasticsearch install page for more detailed instructions.

1. First, install the Elasticsearch GPG key.

Copy 
wget -qO - https://artifacts.elastic.co/GPG-KEY-elasticsearch | sudo gpg --dearmor -o /usr/share/keyrings/elasticsearch-keyring.gpg

2. Then add the repository file /etc/apt/sources.list.d/elastic-7.x.list with the following command:

Copy 
echo "deb https://artifacts.elastic.co/packages/7.x/apt stable main" | sudo tee /etc/apt/sources.list.d/elastic-7.x.list

3. And then install the 7.10.2 release with the following commands:

Copy 
sudo apt-get update && sudo apt-get install elasticsearch=7.10.2

4. Modify the Elasticsearch configuration file (/etc/elasticsearch/elasticsearch.yml), set the cluster name to graylog, and uncomment action.auto_create_index: false to enable the action.

Copy 
echo "cluster.name: graylog
action.auto_create_index: false" | sudo tee /etc/elasticsearch/elasticsearch.yml

5. After you have modified the configuration, you can start Elasticsearch.

Copy 
sudo systemctl daemon-reload
sudo systemctl enable elasticsearch.service
sudo systemctl restart elasticsearch.service
sudo systemctl --type=service --state=active | grep elasticsearch

Graylog Configuration for Elasticsearch

1. Modify the Elasticsearch configuration file (/etc/elasticsearch/elasticsearch.yml), set the cluster name to graylog, and uncomment action.auto_create_index: false to enable the action.

Copy 
echo "cluster.name: graylog
action.auto_create_index: false" | sudo tee /etc/elasticsearch/elasticsearch.yml

2. After you have modified the configuration, you can start Elasticsearch and verify it is running.

Copy 
sudo systemctl daemon-reload
sudo systemctl enable elasticsearch.service
sudo systemctl restart elasticsearch.service
sudo systemctl restart elasticsearch.service

Graylog

Now install the Graylog repository configuration and Graylog Open itself with the following commands.

Copy 
wget https://packages.graylog2.org/repo/packages/graylog-5.0-repository_latest.deb
sudo dpkg -i graylog-5.0-repository_latest.deb
sudo apt-get update && sudo apt-get install graylog-server

If you are installing Graylog Operations, then you will use the following commands.

Copy 
wget https://packages.graylog2.org/repo/packages/graylog-5.0-repository_latest.deb
sudo dpkg -i graylog-5.0-repository_latest.deb
sudo apt-get install graylog-enterprise

Edit the Graylog Configuration File

Read the instructions within the configurations file and edit as needed, located at /etc/graylog/server/server.conf. Additionally, add password_secret and root_password_sha2 as these are mandatory and Graylog will not start without them.

1. To create your password_secret, run the following command.

Copy 
< /dev/urandom tr -dc A-Z-a-z-0-9 | head -c${1:-96};echo;

2. To generate a root_password_sha2.

Copy 
echo -n "Enter Password: " && head -1 </dev/stdin | tr -d '\n' | sha256sum | cut -d" " -f1

To be able to connect to Graylog, you should set http_bind_address to the public host name or a public IP address for the machine with which you can connect. More information about these settings can be found in Configuring the Web Interface.

Hint: If you’re operating a single-node setup and would like to use HTTPS for the Graylog web interface and the Graylog REST API, it’s possible to use NGINX or Apache as a reverse proxy.

3. The last step is to enable Graylog during the operating system’s start up and verify it is running.

Copy 
sudo systemctl daemon-reload
sudo systemctl enable graylog-server
sudo systemctl start graylog-server
sudo systemctl --type=service --state=active | grep graylog

Now you can ingest messages into your Graylog instance and extract the messages with extractors or use pipelines to work with the messages.

Multiple Server Setup

If you plan to have multiple servers delegating different roles in your cluster like we have in this big production setup, then you need to modify a few settings. This is covered in our Multi-Node Setup Guide. The default file location guide will give you the file you need to modify in your setup.